“Because your brand is everything.®”

Going Global

In general, a U.S. registration does nothing to protect you anywhere else in the world. Trademark rights are established on a country-by-country basis, and most countries are “first to file”, meaning the first to apply gets the registration. If you plan to expand your business into foreign countries, or if you sell your goods or services over the Internet and have customers outside of the U.S., we advise you to extend protection of your trademark in each country that is or you anticipate will be a significant market for you. In some cases, we highly recommend defensive registrations so others cannot claim your mark in other countries.

If you file an application in most any foreign country within the first six months after filing your United States application, your rights in those countries will be given foreign priority and date retroactively back to the date you filed your U.S. application. Let’s say you have an established business in the U.S., but you believe that you will expand sales into France, Japan, and Australia, for example, and you want to protect your rights there. We can file in the U.S. and then roll out these other countries over the course of the next six months, and you will be protected.